Drugs, Not Hugs

The Student Teacher Safety Act of 2006 (HR 5295) is a sloppily written bill that would require any school receiving federal funding (essentially every public school) to adopt policies allowing teachers and school officials to conduct random, warrantless searches of every student, at any time, for essentially any reason they want. All they would have to do is say they suspect one of their students might be carrying drugs, and then they could conduct a wide scale search of every student in the building. These searches could be pat-downs, bag searches, or strip searches depending on how far school administrators wanted to go. Although courts would have the power to overturn policies that went "too far", it could take years - possibly decades - to safeguard the rights of students in every school.

So says the Drug Policy Alliance, which studies these sorts of things and lobbies for "Reason, Compassion, and Justice" when it comes to the drug war.

More info here.

Where have you gone, Lindsay Earl?

Update: More info on the law's bad effects (and what to do about it), courtesy of Students for a Sensible Drug Policy.

The bill is up for a vote tomorrow.

Comments

kevrob | September 18, 2006, 3:58pm | #

I'd like to be a fly on the wall at a teacher's "in service day" where they teach the staff how much "patting down" is OK for a drug search, while not being so much that the instructor winds up getting sued or criminally charged for sexual assault or harrassment.

Remember why the Federal Government is able to dump this crap on our heads: we let the states run schools, and we let the Feds subsidize the states. It is well past time to privatize these systems. As a graduate of private, religious schools, I was doubtless subject to rules just as intrusive as those contemplated by this stupid Act, but that was my parents' choice, and if they didn't like them they could have pulled me out of those schools.

Kevin

Concerned mother | September 18, 2006, 4:43pm | #

It's for the children.

Lamar | September 18, 2006, 4:45pm | #

Hug them jugs to find the drugs.

Timothy | September 18, 2006, 5:22pm | #

I predict this will pass in a landslide and nobody will care. It is, after all, for the children and the logical extension of "zero tolerance". These are the sort of policies that only bother people when it happens to little Biff or Muffy in the suburbs and even then it only makes a "can you believe that?" headline on the local TV news for an afternoon.

Perverted Teacher | September 18, 2006, 6:09pm | #

I sense a lot of drug suspicions in the female locker room...toking up in the showers, I bet.

Seamus | September 18, 2006, 6:14pm | #

Sounds like yet another reason to home-school.

Perverted Teacher | September 18, 2006, 6:17pm | #

I sense a lot of drug suspicions in the female locker room...toking up in the showers, I bet.

bill | September 19, 2006, 5:11am | #

"Policies that went too far", like violating the 4th amendment?